1. Field of the Disclosure
The present disclosure relates to an input device, for example, of which an operation surface is used as an outer peripheral surface of a ring portion of a steering device, and a control system of an in-vehicle device.
2. Description of the Related Art
Recently, vehicles have become more intelligent, and a variety of input operations are largely performed without regard to being driven, being parked, or the like. In the related art, a plurality of switches is arranged at a position of a spoke portion (steering device pad in Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2001-143559) of a steering device, and a selection/input operation of an electronic device is performed, as disclosed in Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2001-143559 for example.
However, there is a problem in that operability is poor since operations of the switches entail movement of a finger.
On the other hand, in Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 62-198545, a plurality of pressure sensors is arranged in a ring portion (ring-shaped structure in Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 62-198545) so as to allocate a plurality of functions, and the ring portion is pressed and a pressure is detected by the associated pressure sensor which is at the pressed position. Then, a predetermined function is activated based on a signal detected by the pressure sensor.
In the configuration of Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 62-198545, there is, however, a problem of tending to cause an operation error since an input operation is made by pressing the ring portion. That is, if the ring portion is firmly grasped, there is a problem in that operation recognition is arbitrarily initiated. In addition, in order to obtain, for example, a volume control function of a car audio in the configuration of Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 62-198545, there is a need to individually arrange each of the pressure sensors for turning up the volume and the pressure sensors for turning down the volume along a circumferential direction of the ring portion. Therefore, there is a problem in that it is difficult to allocate multiple input operations on the ring portion. In addition, since a steering device disclosed in Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 62-198545 is based on the premise that a switch portion is disposed in a spoke portion and switched on, there is a problem in that it is unable to be completed only by the operation of the ring portion and has poor operability.
In addition, Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2008-87566 is disclosed which disposes a capacitive sensor at an operation region of a ring portion to activate an in-vehicle device. Then, an input operation is not performed in a state in which a hand comes into contact with exclusive regions located at both sides of the operation region.
However, in the configuration of Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2008-87566, an input operation of the in-vehicle device should be performed by picking the operation region with a finger or performing a rotation operation in an isolated state, and an operation separated from a normal driving operation. Moreover, the exclusive regions are at both sides of the operation region, and the operation should be performed so that a hand comes into no contact with the exclusive regions. Accordingly, it may be impossible to obtain good operability.